Winter Commuting - Ontario Style!
 

Old Man Winter returns with a vengeance to Southwestern Ontario:

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I will now pay homage to the Gods of Winter Tires. I will prick my skin on the razor-sharp carbide studs, praying that my payment in blood will remain on the Altar of Schwalbe Marathon Winters and not end up on the streets of my commute.

I have not forsaken you, Planet Bike, as I will now sacrifice a cow (in the form of a steak) in honor of your awesome fenders and blinkies.

Me and my buddy ride pure road bikes through Toronto winters, snow and all. :D

That's vengeance? Man, I wish Rochester's winter "vengeance" was so mild.

We got a good dump of snow in missisauga today, but it's all wet and slushy type of snow. No ice so I don't feel a need for studs. Normally I run studs on my winter mountain bike but this year I've been getting around just fine on some touring tires, (1.8 wide with some not too agressive tread). Actually most of this winter I spent riding my fixed gear road bike with skinny tires ( 32mm) wide, it's really good if there is just few cm of snow and slush.

We haven't had snow in weeks, and suddenly it looks like a blizzard out there. VERY dissapointing, I was looking forward to Spring!

This is how I handle Great Falls snow with a minimum of spills. I put some studs on my Kona Blast.
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VANOC would love a dump of that snow over here here in Vancouver. :lol:

I'll bet - I felt sorry for you guys while watching those news reports. Have you dug out yet? I guess when I said "vengeance" I was referring to the fact that for the last week or so we've had sunny skies and mild temps. Felt like spring was in the air.

No kidding! I've been enjoying the "Spring" Olympics, nonetheless.

hey I run a bike shop.... I could do with a couple more weeks of winter to get some projects completed!

Rochester honestly isn't that bad this year. We've had snow on the ground more-or-less continuously since late November, but haven't had multiple feet dumped on us in a short period of time. Feel sorry for the people down in Washington DC and Virginia. They got dumped on, and weren't prepared for it.

I feel you. Today's morning commute was horrible.

I expect the ride home will not be any better. :(

I'm jealous! This is the winter that wasn't. (for Massachusetts)

[QUOTE=irclean;10436579]Old Man Winter returns with a vengeance to Southwestern Ontario.
QUOTE]

South Central Ontario as well.

Rode to work yesterday on dry roads but my return home at 6:00 PM was quite a challenge. The snowplows were slow getting out after so many weeks of dry roads and the ruts the cars left in the snow had me using all of my cycling skills just staying upright. At one point my forward momentum came to an abrupt end when the wheels jammed with snow. Twice I hit the ground when the front wheel hit a hole or dip under the snow and I have a fist-sized bruise on my left side. My normal 20-minute trip took over an hour. It is the first time in many years that I had to walk the bike because I could not cycle through some snow banks formed at intersections from the car traffic. At 7:00 AM this morning the roads still had not been plowed completely and I was forced to clean about a foot of snow off the car.

You can pretend you are in the Winter Olympics, while the West Coast basks in spring-like weather! Hey, there's an idea for the next Winter Games.

Thanks. We are never prepared especially for the back to back storms of 4-5 ft within 1 week!! We even had to put bike commuting on hold for almost a week. It has been difficult even now, almost 3 weeks later. While roads are mostly clear we still have lanes vanishing into huge snow piles. We have another due tomorrow through Friday. Glad I left the studs on. Enjoy your snow, we are tired of ours;-)

Funny thing was I got a flat on my winter bike the night before the big snow storm hit, so on the snow day I commuted on my hybrid with slicks. Worked out okay, actually. It did not even take that much longer than normal commute, although I did decide to play it safe and make most of my left turns pedestrian- rather than vehicular-style.

Well we didn't get much snow! I wouldn't call that a big snow storm. (in Toronto)

We have about 4 times as much snow on the ground here. Why is weather so much better in Canada this year?

Karma.

What you you need is one of these plows

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4026/...ed8800fbf7.jpg

followed by one of these salt trucks

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You are right. But for this particular winter it certainly was a notable occurrence. I could see no one remembered how to drive in it; fortunately, most people realized that and drove very slowly.

BTW, more snow coming and I still did not get around to fixing the winter bike's flat. Wish me luck... :)

You're absolutely right, but I think what I envy the most is those nice bicycle lanes. Bikes definitely take a back seat to cars around these parts when it comes to infrastructure.

Europe has been having one of their more snowy winters in years. Hasn't stopped them from riding their bikes.

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Not like the weather here

http://media.twnmm.com/storage/2067922/233

11 degrees. Don't even need a coat.

I love those pics, I wish I could see something like that around here. Canadians and Americans are a bunch of Wimps.

noooo! There's already too much salt and grit on the roads around here. Just give me snow and my fat tires.